A battle is expected soon in Maine, where gay rights proponents, inspired by the outcome in New York, announced last week that they would start gathering signatures to put same-sex marriage on the ballot next year. The governor in 2009 signed into law a bill allowing same-sex marriage, but opponents pushed it to a referendum, and voters defeated it a few months later.

North Carolina will be another early battleground, with its legislature, now controlled by Republicans, expected to consider this fall whether to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before voters in November 2012. North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast that has not already adopted such an amendment.

“There is a greater resolve in our state to stand up and get a marriage amendment into our State Constitution,” Ron Baity, the president of Return America, a conservative religious group in Wallburg, N.C., said after seeing the results in New York.

Another battle is expected in New Hampshire, one of the states that has adopted same-sex marriage.